The Girl From Ipanema Still Has It

Tall and tan and young and lovely

The girl from Ipanema goes walking

And when she passes

Each one she passes goes ahhh

- from "The Girl From Ipanema"

"Yes, music lovers, there really is a Girl From Ipanema - and she's still a knockout nearly a half-century after she inspired the song that became a worldwide classic.

At age 63, she's still tan and lovely, looks 15 years younger and can still turn a few heads at the beach.

Brazilians refer to her simply as Helo, but she was teenager Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto when she strolled by the Veloso restaurant in 1962 and beguiled a poet named Vinicius de Moraes.

As legend has it, so moved was he when the leggy teen passed by, "swinging and swaying like a samba" as she headed for the beach, that he wrote the lyrics right at the bar. Moraes then asked a songwriter friend, Antonio Carlos Jobim, to compose the tune.

Amazingly, "The Girl From Ipanema" was somewhat of a flop when it hit the Brazilian airwaves. But a later version by Joao and Astrud Gilberto (featuring Stan Getz on sax) caught on around the world. The song won Record of the Year at the 1965 Grammy Awards."

Yes friends and neighbors, she's 63.

Gulp.